An editor spurned
Taki
EWashington DC
ven if I say so myself, Pat Buchanan's opening column in the first issue of the American Conservative is such a tour de force, I only hope people in the White House read it rather carefully. The trouble is, of course, no one reads nowadays, and even if they do, they'll just dismiss it as a typical 'he would say that, wouldn't he?' piece. Well, not really. Buchanan traces how the American colossus was guided through the Cold War by conservative statesmen like Eisenhower and Reagan, how Uncle Sam rejected Churchillian romanticism and 'even in the face of horrors like the butchery in Budapest in 1956, refused to risk the Great War'.
Of course America will not be defeated by Iraq, a pariah state with a dozen 400mile missiles and an obsolete air force. All 22 Arab nations have a total GDP smaller than Spain's, but the flea-cons over here are anxious to go to war before some of these states develop public transport or, God forbid, an underground camel express. A cakewalk conquest of Iraq, according to Samurai neo-cons, will leave Iraq occupied, Syria hemmed in by Israeli, American and Turkish power, Sharon able to return to Lebanon and settle scores with Hezbollah, and Iran surrounded by US power in Turkey, Iraq, the Gulf, Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Arabian Sea. The plan looks great on paper except that it might have even scared Alexander the Great by its scope. (For any young readers educated in Blair's comprehensives, Alexander was a Greek, not a neo-con, and he died in Iraq from too much whoopee.) And now for the bad news. Israel's invasion of Lebanon, a joke country, ignited a guerrilla war that drove the Israelis out after 18 bloody years, something Sharon and his ilk seem to forget. Pro-Western Arab regimes will disappear quicker than the Kuwaiti 'royal' family did when Saddam invaded, once American hegemony threatens the Islamic world. Remember all those Arab monarchs who collaborated with Europe's colonial powers? They were dethroned by nationalists in places such as Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran and Addis Ababa. Jordan, Afghanistan and Pakistan will turn against Britain and
America the moment the first shot is fired, and if some of you happy warriors out there don't believe me, I'll see you in Gstaad sometime next year. That other Genghis Khan wannabe, Bibi Netanyahu, is already listing for Congressional committees all the Arab nations we must attack. Talk about greater Israel. This bum wants to conquer all of Arabia, and with America doing the heavy lifting.
And there's more. Once the Kurds revolt, which they will, what do we then do? Hit them or declare war on Turkey, which will obviously step in. If the House of Saud leaves en masse for the Riviera, who will replace them — social democrats or Osama fans? The Brits were driven out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russkies out of Afghanistan, and the Yanks out of Somalia and Beirut. And the Israelis out of Lebanon. No one seems to have read history, and recent history at that.
But enough of war. On Monday I woke up as an editor — at least that's what the American Conservative says on the masthead — so the first thing I did was to call the sainted Spectator editor as an equal, but he refused to take my call. I then rang Charles Moore and Dominic Lawson, again as an equal, and both of them did a Boris on me. I did get to speak with some flunkey at the Taller who addressed me as Taki, so I guess all is not lost. Now I need to have some cards printed with the words editorin-chief next to my name. I will then give them out to the various women I run into and in no time I will he more famous than Boris, Charles and Dominic put together.
Speaking of women. I ran into a beautiful black girl by the name of Eden Williams at Elaine's. She's a Harvard graduate and it was hunky-dory for a while. Then, while driving downtown with, believe it or not, the great-granddaughter of Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron), I asked her to marry me. 'But you're married,' she protested. That is when I blew it for good. 'Come on, you people don't really mind about such matters. . . 'or words to that effect.
Eden took umbrage and things got unhunky-dory. Afterwards, I sat alone, asking myself how I could say such a stupid thing. A gentleman never insults inadvertently, and I had committed a great faux pas. Oh well, there must be thousands of black girls who went to Harvard. Racial quotas and all that. But here I go again, putting my foot in it. I fear I might be giving editors a bad name.
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